Runehammer

CL is, without doubt, the most prestigious and therefore important club competition in Europe at least, ask any football fan Europe-wide to list the biggest clubs and I'd be very surprised if Chelsea got much of a mention compared to us, so I'm firmly with Swipe here. Even the Torres transfer isn't as straightforward as he is trying to claim, I don't think too many neutrals with a sound understanding of football (ie not the sky fed idiots) would consider Chelsea a better prospect for success then us after the last transfer window closed. Obviously they are much more likely to be in the CL next season but even that isn't looking guaranteed.

Absolutely no way do I believe that! My original post was very poorly written but I am nowhere near at my best these days. I am not sure what is the best way to go in reality, but at no point have I ever thought Kenny wanted anything other than to do his best for us, I am horrified if it came across otherwise.

I was in favour of Kenny being appointed as caretaker but, as much as I detest Hodgson and the damage he is doing, I think it would be a mistake to get Kenny in, it isn't the same situation as Hiddink, if Kenny came in and did well what would happen then, if he wanted it permanent but the board had already lined up a successor? I think Kenny has a more important role to play as ambassador for the club long-term and him being appointed as manager, caretaker or otherwise, may well jeopardise that. That said tho' I would rather they got shot of Hodgson and let the players sort themselves out for the rest of the season as I don't think they could do any worse and it may also serve as a salutory lesson to some of them that football managership should be left to football managers. Sammy Lee may be a more realistic option for caretaker as I don't think his previous tenure at Bolton should be held against him.

This is absolutely true, and sorry (but hardly surprised) that Andy got banned from RAWK again as I love his posts, but I am assuming that NESV do not want to be seen as making a knee-jerk decision by sacking Roy anytime soon (I believe they should but lets be realistic our bloody media will be all over them), and will want to give him the season, tho' if we are in a relegation battle come christmas I reckon their hand will be forced. I am praying they don't give him free reign with transfers as I think he could set us back years. I don't think there are any suitable candidates for manager around right now and I don't believe that Kenny is in the frame for any caretaker role (my choice would be to remove Roy now and install Kenny to see the season out but I'm merely a pleb) so I think that rather than sack Roy and leave us in limbo they will be in the process of identifying the guy they want to take us forward so that he can be installed in the summer. I can't believe they see Roy as that man. So I think that the best we can hope for as a result of this week's meeting is that NESV tell Roy to shut-up with his crap during press conferences and, either limit his transfer spending or let someone else, Kenny maybe, spend it on behalf of the club!

I dunno, do you rub your chin?

Abso-frigging-lutely, I used this ahem "feature" for the City match for the first time and lasted less than a minute before scouring t'internet for a stream to watch! Never ever again, it's be jerky bufferdom for me from now on!

Fez and a bath-sheet?

It is unsustainable and a crash will come as you say, I think there will end up be a European, or even World, superleague with franchises owned exclusively by billionaire tycoons or cartels. This may sound crazy but I think it is a real possibility that something like that rises from the ashes, should clubs like ourselves and the Mancs go out of business when the money runs out; quite possibly when the next TV rights come around. When I was a nipper I always fancied the idea of a European Superleague but the scenario I had in mind was nothing like what I fear could nowadays.

I am not talking about achievements, tho' I am hopeful Rafa will be up there once his tenure is over, rather that they are the same kind of people. They are from completely different cultures, let alone backgrounds, but they were/are humble, fighters and fully aware of how special this club is.

I believe that Rafa is cut from the same cloth as Shanks and Paisley, although they are all completely different they share many common traits. He's certainly here to build a dynasty and I cannot think of any manager who would be as good, let alone better. Good shout on timescale Royhendo, I'd say 7 years sounds about right and if we haven't won No 19 by then, then I will begin to wonder if we'll ever manage to win it again in my lifetime. It took Demento 7 years and (notwithstanding the different era) I see a lot of similarity between the respective positions of the cubs when they took over. Even Chelsea have not drastically reduced that timeframe (since Abramovich) and they had the luxury of getting shot of all their deadwood and bringing in quality in one fell swoop. Managing to maintain their position has also proven to be very difficult for them. So whilst Rafa is doing a better (or at least as good as) job than anyone else around there is still no guarantee of success and that's the bitter pill that we all may have to swallow. If he gets it right tho' then we are likely to bring back the glory days for at least a decade. Getting rid of him tho' is not likely to help on any level, tho' the demand for instant success being what it is these days makes me fearful.

Hansen suffered mostly from the Aberdeen mafia! He didn't help his case with that shocking blunder at the World Cup but it was mainly down to Ferguson. No way on earth was Dalglish going to be omitted, he was exempt from any cross-border bias. This anti-anglo policy was never official and really needs some old Scots fellows to try and clarify, it was certainly bizarre how some players suffered from it and others didn't.

That's the one, it seems fairly tame now and not at all how I remember the incident! Hard but fair yes, as I recall most of the hard men back then were fair, it was also criminal that he got so few caps for Scotland but back in the 60's up into the 80's there was a policy of not selecting "anglos" if it was avoidable.

Yeah I remember him playing for Spurs in the 60's, hard as nails. There's a famous picture of him having Bremner by the throat after the horrible little ginger git attempted to "do him" on his return from a particularly bad leg break. He retired from football in the late 90's.

Benites surely?

Yes I believe it is, in part, watch any SS program concerning Premiership football and virtually all of their pundits predict nailed-on victories for Arsenal, Man U and Chelsea but not for us. Listen to Andy Gray and it's damn hard to find any occasion where we actually won because we outplayed a decent team. It seems that, mostly, when we win it's because the opposition were woeful. I could be wrong but I maintain it's a, significant, factor. Our home record has been pretty good prior to this season, when last our away form was poor and yet there has been little evidence, from the opposition, that they were coming to "Fortress Anfield" as in olden times.

The simple answer to this (and a large part of this is down to people like Andy Gray) is that Premiership teams fancy taking points off us whereas European sides (even the very best ones) are still scared of us. The reverse is the case for Arsenal, Chelsea and Man U.

Yes but the CL is just the European Carling Cup now; don't you know?

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Exactly, the fact his weaknesses are more apparent now is due to the overall improvements to the squad under Rafa.

Aye, unless he brings home no.19 of course, hopefully anyway, I'm not sure what to expect from our press nowadays - save that it's unlikely to be anything positive.

Well said, the major problem we're suffering with (creativity wise) is down to the absence of these 2. My biggest fear is that the media fed sheeple will succeed in getting Rafa f***ed off and setting us back decades.

Act or not the role he played in the Anders Friske affair was despicable. I grew up with Shanks in charge and I know he used to say some outrageous things but there's no comparison and I'd like to think that, were the great man alive today, if the "special one" was due to arrive as LFC manager he'd be barring the gate with a shotgun.

Me neither, he is the polar opposite of everything our club stands for, as far as I'm concerned.

Unless that bun in the oven is really just too many buns?

It's all well and good putting 8 past Besiktas but we really should be scoring double figures in these games, we should be looking for more negatives I feel or we'll have people starting to wonder if perhaps we aren't as crap as we are supposed to be.